Are there still any laws that apply to women but not men?

[CuppaTeaJanice]

Or vice versa? Or any offences that carry different penalties depending on the gender of the offender or victim?

The area that immediately springs to mind is being topless in public. Also I expect there were many old laws eg. homosexuality only being illegal for males because Queen Victoria didn't believe females would do such a thing. And women not being allowed to vote, her possessions being 'owned' by her husband etc.

Does anybody know if all the gender inequalities in British law have now been rectified, or are there still a few odd laws left that are not equal?

I've had a quick look and can't find anything that breaks down sentences for crime type by gender (and haven't got time to look further right now), but it seems men are twice as likely to receive a custodial sentence for an inditable offence.

In 2009 58,802 men were given immediate custodial sentences - 29.5% of all men sentenced

In the same period 6,016 women were given an immediate custodial sentence - 16.1% of all women sentenced.

So, it may be true that women get proportionately longer sentences, but are half as likely to be sentenced to a custodial sentence in the first place.

Actually just found this:

rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hosb1505.pdf

Table 2.13 shows that for every type of offence except Drug Offences, men are massively more likely to be given a custodial sentence than women.

Without the crimes it doesn't mean anything though. I was under the impression that men are far more likely to commit violent crime than women, which might explain why more of them get sent to prison, and for longer...

But that crime for crime, women are penalised more harshly than men.

Waiting to be enlightened by Heroine.

And tabloe 2.14 in the same link shows that the average sentence for women is less than for men in every offence category except Criminal Damage.

So it seem Heroine is correct

My personal experience is that men do get longer custodial sentences than woman, particularly mothers, on a like for like basis.

The assertion that more woman are in prison for lesser crimes is presumably not comparative?

I am still interested in the specific direct.gov info that heroine was talking about.

I have had a look, there's not a lot there.

here is something saying that the govt thought that too many women were being jailed for minor offences.

Elsewhere (will try to find it again) it points out that the stats showing sentences which are lower for women than for men, don't include detail - a major thing being that many women who are sent to prison have no previous convictions, while many men have - and this obviously impacts on sentences.

It would be great to really be able to believe that women are not punished more harshly than men in the Uk for like-for-like crimes, or imprisoned for lesser crimes.

Oh for god's sake - when I get a moment I'll do some hunting for you but other posters have clearly found plenty that you still are refusing to believe. Women get a lot of leniency when compared to men - women's hour had a whole programme on it last year, and the government's concern was not about the fact that women get locked up more than men for trivial offences, but that even though women get locked up for a third as long than men do CRIME FOR CRIME there is an argument for even more leniency for trivial offences because a) women supposedly find jail more tramatic than men (back to the old delicate flower theory that I hate) and b) because of childcare.

Richard and Judy show also had a special on this where they interviewed women prisoners who agreed that women were let off lightly, but deserved it because of their kids.

btw on women's hour they cited suicidal feelings as being 'evidence' that women found prison more traumatic, but missed out (to my disgust actually) that men are far more likely to commit suicide in prison than women. I have also heard that women in prison are more supportive of each other than men are, but I think that was on the same show.

I know its hard, but i think that if I get beaten up by another woman, she should get convicted of assault and get the right penalty for assault. If she is the sole carer for her children, lets have creches in prison, but I don't think we can ask for fairness one way, but not the other.

Heroine you are just saying what you have heard though, I have heard different, it would be great if what I have heard is incorrect.

You said that for the same crime, men get sentences 3x longer than for women and said it was on the direct gov site so it must be in your history, please can you link.

some interesting stuff from HMRC

here's a recent thing from the prison reform trust.

The info lenak linked to certainly indicates that woman are sentenced more leniently than men overall (although will concede it is a little old).

Yes it does, I'm just surprised, and very surprised that men get 3 x the length of time that women do for the exact same crime.

For instance there was all that stuff about how loads of women were in prison for not paying their TV licence, and other things related to debt, while men got sent to prison for more serious crimes (violence) and were unlikely to be jailed for something like shoplifting.

The thing I saw earlier made the point that most women going to prison have no previous convictions, while most men do - that will affect sentences and will not be obvious from basic data. Ditto something like theft - a man might be more likely to mug and a woman to shoplift - I would say that mugging was a "worse" crime, but there is no way of seeing what the subdivisions are.

I would be really surprised to see that men get 3 x more than women for the exact same crime - that would have been noticed, surely.

No it doesn't. It gives some contextless stats. It doesn't show the many other criteria that affect sentencing like previous convictions, multiple crimes, the seriousness of the crimes within the category. It needs someone with an understanding of all of that to analyse that data. Like the Prison Reform Trust or Helena Kennedy. Or someone with the opposing view. A table to stats is not enough.

ISNT I would also be suprised if woman were getting 3x longer custodials than woman, but would nonetheless be interested to see the stats to which Heroic referred to.

Certainly men are more likely to commit (for example) violent crime than woman and therefore that would account for why more men are in prison for violence.

On a professional level I would be stunned if "most woman going to prison have no previous convictions". Generally speaking it is actually extremely rare for a custodial sentence to be imposed for a first offence (male or female). Further as a percentage of all sentences imposed for all offences, custodials are also rare.

Sorry that should be men were getting 3x longer custodials.

Must. Proof. Read.

this is interesting - 63% of women are in prison for non-violent
offences, compared with 45% of men.

More women were sent to prison in 2007
for shoplifting offences than any other
crime. They accounted for 26% of all

so, 1 in 4 women prisoners for shoplifting! - i would say this is a lesser crime than mugging - mugging involves an assault upon a person of some kind.

also twice as many women (27%) are in jail after their first offence - than men.

so fa, i looks like women go to jail for lesser offences. when you really compare like with like.

2010
27% of women in prison had no previous convictions ? more than double the figure for men

rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors170.pdf

This is from 1997 so could be considered out of date. I'm having trouble copying text from PDF, so you'll just have to take a look for yourselves.

I would however be suprised if any of those 26% in for shoplifting also fell into the category of the 27% who had not got any previous convictions.

One issue that skews these types of statistics is the disproportionately high number of woman that are imprisoned for drug trafficking. Most carriers will not have previous convictions but will nearly always receive a custodial sentence due to the seriousness of the offence.

Only someone with a penis can commit section one rape, so I suppose genders are treated differently for that offence(understandably).

When you divorce, if you divorce for the grounds of adultery, it doesn't count if your wife left you for another woman, it has to be a man to count for adultery

"63% of women are in prison for non-violent
offences, compared with 45% of men."

Meaningless unless you know how many men and how many women committed violent/non-violent offences.

for example:

If 2,000 men and 2,000 women committed non-voilent offences, and 50% went to prison, we have 1,000 of each in prison for non-violent.

If 1,000 men and 500 women committed violent offences, and they all went to prison, then we have 1,000 men and 500 women in for violent.

So that's treating everyone absolutely equally, but 1,000/2,000 = 50% of men are in for non-violent offences and 1,000/1,500 = 66% of women are in for non-violent offences.

I think there's no age of consent for lesbians but there is for homosexuals. I heard it dates from the 19th century when the age of consent for heterosexual couples was raised from 13 to 16. At that point homosexuality was illegal but allegedly Queen Victoria didn't believe that women would engage in "that sort of activity" and therefore refused to ratify the legislation for women. I'm not sure it's still in place though.